 Well, hi there, my name is Sandy Allnach and I am an artist and paper crafter I took up watercolors about eight months ago or so and people have been asking me ever since What water color brushes should they get what paints what papers because I was getting really good results part of that is because I'm an artist and I have training in general art principles and drawing etc But I decided I was gonna dive deep and find more information about the products And what's good and what's not because I didn't know I'm sharing what I have so far I don't promise this won't change over time But I'm gonna share what I do know at this point and it's aimed at paper crafters So the types of brushes I'm looking for things that paper crafters will be interested in and things that are cost-effective But good quality types of items and there's a couple videos in this series I'll link you to all of them at the end of this video and in the description and on my blog So I went and purchased a gajillion brushes I can't even tell you how much I have in my house tons of brushes These are the aisles with brushes in just one of my local stores. I'm blessed to have a couple stores This one is Dick Blick in Seattle and I tried to purchase a round brush or two in every brand I could find I know there are more that I haven't tested yet But these are the ones these are the number fours that I found worked pretty well pretty happy with them all and I'm not gonna show you any brushes that I didn't like because there's no point So I'm just gonna show you the ones that I do all of these will be linked and described in everything on my blog So be sure to tune in for that at the end of the video I'm gonna show you two of these little guys in particular This DaVinci Cosmo top has a really nice handle and I like how it feels in my hand And if you're only gonna buy one really good brush, this one is a really nice one and it's well worth the purchase The other one is this little black guy, and I'm gonna show you the entire line of them in a few minutes But this line it's by Silver Brush Company. It's called the black velvet line of brushes This one is a little damp, which is why it's curved as I'm playing with it But you can see all the hairs are different lengths on these brushes and at first I was like well That's weird. That's not gonna be not gonna work very well for our small stamped images but all you have to do with these brushes is wet them and do a shake or two and Snap it and look at how fine that point gets. It's out of all these brushes It's probably the finest point that you can get so on those stamped images when you have a little teeny tiny area to get into They're really great brushes This one is another of the number fours, and you see that it looks larger than the Silver Brush and As soon as you wet it and shake it it also gets small It's still not as fine of a point and you can see it's not it doesn't get as fat Which means it doesn't hold as much of that paint and water Inside of it. So here are two brand new brushes And I wanted to show you something about when you purchase a brand new brush because this confused me at first You buy the brush and it's a little hard. I'm pressing on it and it's just kind of stiff And at first I thought oh I got a brush that has gooey on it No, it's not a brush with gooey on it. It is simply a brush that needs the gum Arabic Rinsed out of it. I think it's gum Arabic that's in them But it's put on them in manufacturing in good brushes to keep them from fraying Etc. So if you have brushes that don't have that that may be a quality issue I'm not positive, but all the good brushes that I found have this gum Arabic And all you do is rinse them a couple times and massage that stuff out of them and then they work just great and Shake it and there you go nice fine point on that brush This one is a Cotman and Cotman's is Windsor Newton's student line so anything that you find in any of your stores That's called a student line of paints or papers or anything are great for paper crafters in general Because we don't need artist grade for most things Now this is a new brush from the the line that I like from the silver brush company And it also has a hard nib it came with a little plastic cover on it And I would recommend if you don't lose those covers or if your cat doesn't run off with them Like mine does then I would definitely recommend keeping them on your brushes because they do protect them and So this one again, I'm just gonna massage that little little goo out of it Out of the nib so that it will be ready to use Now this is as I said my favorite line of brushes the silver brush company makes these the black velvet line and I've bought a bunch of different sizes in it because I want to make sure all of them were the same quality It wasn't just that number four brush that was great But I wanted to show you this one in particular This is called a liner brush and if you ever get one of these I thought oh look at that It's gonna get to me a really long fine point. It is very difficult to control I find for our small paper crafting stuff It's great to use for like grasses and those sort of things because look at how fine that does get But it's hard to get control because it's kind of a long long windy sort of a brush But it's a fun one to have for technique things So here are the ones that I use mostly for my cards Look at the other ones in a few minutes But I recommend a two four and a six and then that big one on the left is an eight if you do much with backgrounds But you can see the the the two in the middle ish are sixes And I want to show you something in particular about these two sixes And that's because one is wet already and the other is not but they are the same brush And yes, I buy multiples of the same brush when I like it because I'm afraid I you know If I break it or my cat runs off with it or who knows what I need to have another one but I did the rinse and shake and look it's perfectly pointy just like that one and Same with this number eight. It's totally fuzzy looking and you wet it and Shake it out and it gets a nice fine point all of their brushes seem to do this very very well Which is a really awesome thing for paper crafting and doing really tiny fine work So next here are the other brushes I have in larger sizes and I have one oval wash brush Which is one on the left for doing really wide things you'll see that in the Paper and watercolor testing video that I do and that will be linked at the end of this one But these brushes again also get to a fine point, which is great This one is a travel brush It's a number eight travel brush by the same company and it's very cool because it goes in a little case like this But I'm bomb they are more expensive than the other brushes But if you have trouble with you know your brushes getting all mushy it'd be good to get something with a good cap like this Now you don't want to just shove it in there because you could get the hairs bent out of shape if they don't fit exactly in So I do something. I'm not sure if it's good for them or not I just give it a little quick lick to get the the hairs all damp So they kind of stay in there and don't stick out That's probably not good But I don't want to get it completely wet and then put it away wet because then all that water is gonna stay in there And that's not let's take a look at a couple of brush fails now If you get a good brush and it's a decent brush like this and you have little hairs sticking out different directions I would send that back to the company that that's just a Manufacturing defect, but if it's a brush like this that I got at a big box craft store sold to me as a number four brush Like this one that's not a number four brush And it even when you get it wet those hairs don't come back into place when it when it is given the shake test Does not happen. So you just want to avoid little that's a little made-in-china brush that you just want to not get This is one that was a decent brand But as soon as it hit water all of the laminate just fell off and the bristles started disappearing out of it It was a very sad sad sad thing because I thought that was going to be a good brush I paid some good money for that All right, aqua brushes or water brushes sometimes called These are ones that have water in the handle already So they take a little technique work to get them to operate the way that you want them to this is the Pentel series and it's one of the ones that I use the most and They're the easiest and probably the reason I use them is because they're the easiest to fill because they're one of The few that has just a hole you pour the water in boom done Lots of the others. There's a ton of different brands. These are the Tim Holtz ranger ones and Super fine point on that detailer, which is great. And there's also a flat brush But these along with a bunch of the other brands have this little thing You think of it as a turkey baster You have to put it in water and then squish it and squeeze it and then it sucks the water into the handle And it's just a little more challenging for me Maybe it's a rub your tummy pat your head type of thing that I can't seem to do These are the zig ones and zig has a series of four of them But I only have two of them here couldn't find the others while I was filming this But they have lots of different sizes and I wanted to get a Size comparison for them So I looked through my brushes to see kind of what might be the equivalent and that's a number six and a number two But there is a pack of four and you can get all four of them and have four great sizes of brushes to use in your painting So I wanted to show you a little bit about how those things are filled and they say that you should just be able to stick It in a jar of water like this But I find that takes longer than shoving it into a bowl of water and then just squeeze squeeze to suck the water in So I put that out there for you figure out your best way to do it Now water brushes work by you squeeze it and the water should come out of the handle And then down the nib and then you can paint with it. That's ideally how it should work There are sometimes and sometimes it's a matter of how you're holding the water brush and whether you're holding it Vertically enough sometimes you need to hold certain brands more vertically than others But I find that they all seem to work relatively well I found only one complete dud of a brand But all the rest of them work But look what happened there the water came out before it went down the nib and that can be an issue So you need to just hold it more vertically potentially or maybe on try two or try three it will end up working well But that's just one of those things with water brushes You have to get used to the technique that you would have to use in order to get that water to come down and Come right out of the nib I only have one aqua brush fail to share with you and that's one that I got at the dollar store I don't even know what brand it is, but it sucked all the paint into the barrel of my Brush so it was not particularly helpful if I were to switch to any color, but yellow So I would not recommend the dollar store probably for your brushes Let's talk about brush storage When brushes are wet you want to store them horizontally until they dry and then you can put them in a jar or cup If you want I keep mine in cases like this This was my original case that I had and I ran out of space because I bought so many brushes But this one now contains all of the brushes that are for my frisket All the ones that are brush fails have ended up in here because frisket will ruin your brushes and I keep these here So I at least have some other use for them But this thing wraps up really easily and you can also get one for tall brushes as long handled ones You can get a different size. I'll link you to both sizes in the description and on my blog and then you just put the little Velcro around it. It's got a hook on it So I took that with me when I traveled in Europe and painted it was great a friend of mine I was so excited she made this for me and I use this for my regular brushes and This one is a carrier just like the other but it's made out of beautiful fabric I'll link you to her blog and the post that she made all of that how she made it So you can make yourself one and I keep buying in order of the brush number and then I have my and They're in decreasing order and then all of my water brushes in there And again this folds down and this one you can fold down part way if you have some taller brushes too I tend to not use the long handle brushes Just the shorter ones then you roll it up put the little handles around the outside of it because it'll hold it closed and It's done and beautiful and ready to put away and keep it nice and small So her blog is the craft patch and I will link you to that in the description down below So that is about all I have brushes at this time. I hope that was helpful information for you There are two other videos here The top one is all about paper and paints the bottom one is all about techniques And you're welcome to go visit either one of those the links are in the description as well as annotations and in the Card in the upper right hand corner, please do subscribe to my channel And I hope to have more information coming for you and more technique tutorials as well So I hope to see you again sometime here on my channel. Thank you so much. Have a great day. I'll talk to you later. Bye. Bye